Reply #13: For starters ...

[RoyGBiv]

Try here for a collection of distros: http://www.linuxiso.org/

You can read a bit about them, follow links to the official sites, or just download some disc images to burn to a CD for installation purposes.

I started with a Knoppix Live CD. I downloaded the single disc ISO, burned it, turned off my computer, then booted from the CD drive. This let me play with it and see how I liked it, and Knoppix Live tends to work well with pretty much anything. On some machines I've had to turn off USB port detection to get it to boot, but the rest of the boot process went without a hitch. SUSE, Ubuntu, and a few others also have a LiveCD version, links available at the above site.

What distribution (distro) did you try before, and what problem(s) did you have?

Other than that, it helps to know what to suggest if we know your basic hardware configuration. The only real problem with Linux from my perspective is the lack of driver support for some hardware, printers especially. If you have anything exotic or anything from a company that absolutely, positively refuses to support OpenSource on any level (I'm talking to you, Lexmark), you'll have issues. Some USB port configurations, dial-up modems, and networking could be issues you face for the type of use you're wanting. I say that not to discourage you, just to prepare you for some worst-case scenarios, and having said all this, the irony is that getting Linux to function well on older machines is often easier than on newer machines.

So, anyway, what are the specs on your computer?